6/19/15

It's been less than a week since the season finale of Game of Thrones, and this Sunday we're supposed to be showering dads everywhere with something they'll love. We see an action-packed, fantasy-driven void that needs to be filled! Skip the cutesy coffee mugs and uninventive gift cards and give him something that will get his adrenaline pumping.

6/15/15

Looking to jump into a new series? Miss the old days where elves and dwarves could still swing a sword? Well, news this month is the second book in J. F. Lewis's Grudgebearer Trilogy, OATHKEEPER, and we've got an excerpt for you!

If you like what you read, don't forget to grab the first book GRUDGEBEARER, so you...ya know...know what's going on.

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Night birds
called in the outer dark, joining a chorus comprised of tent fabric shifting in
the gentle breeze and the chirps, cries, and grunts of nocturnal creatures.
Rivvek loved those sounds; even the sea lapping against the pier at Oot
contributed to the unscripted opus.

Combined with the scent of stale air inside
the tent and the snores of another person nearby, the sensorial collage
conjured memories of brighter days camping with his father the king . . . even
hunting trips with his younger brother before Dolvek had become so
insufferable. Rivvek had hoped his brother’s encounter with Kholster would be
transformative.

Their world is about to change in
ways they cannot even imagine, he thought, blind
to the turning of the gears in the great destiny machine.

The great destiny machine.

Rivvek smirked at the thought of it. Once he’d believed the gnomes
worshipped a literal device that wove the skein of mortal fates. When he’d
realized numbers were the gnomish religion and their great destiny machine
merely a codified method of determining likely outcomes, he’d been sorely
disappointed . . . and then, years later as he lay healing under the care of
the Vael, he’d learned to do the math.

The gnomes played a game with triangular
tiles: trignom. Queen Kari of the Vael had given him a set during his
convalescence. He had never learned to play well. Irka, Kholster’s son—a
perfect double called an Incarna—always beat him, but Rivvek remembered building
patterns with the double-sided num­bered tiles atop the stiff and pungent
plaster in which the Vael healers kept most of him wrapped, and knocking them
over to watch the trignoms fall.

The whole world was like those tumbling tiles if you knew how to
look at it, and, eyes having been so painfully and thoroughly opened, Rivvek
knew no other way.

My graduation approaches.

Rivvek considered his true education to have
begun at the Grand Con­junction a hundred and thirteen years ago. It marked his
thoughts then as

clearly as the
scars he’d received afterward warped his flesh. Was it fair to hold the lack of
such learning against his brother? An Eldrennai who still had his magic, whose
body was whole and hale?

Prince Rivvek lay in the dark, incapable of slumber, stacking up the
trignoms in his thoughts, looking at them from every angle and doing the math.
The first tile would be flicked over soon. It was a tile he would have given
almost anything to protect, to place his hand over the tile and hold it in
place safe and secure. There were three ways to stop it he could accomplish
alone, but then the pattern changed, and the new designs woven into the great
destiny machine spelled doom for the Eldrennai.

He wasn’t sure
why the Zaur hadn’t started burning Root Trees yet. The math said they should.
Perhaps his formulae were off in that regard, but his calculations, his own
personal version of the great destiny machine, was far more accurate when it
came to the Eldren Plains and the politics and machi­nations of the Eldrennai.

Those sums spelled destruction now. He had not yet been born when
Uled had created the Aern, a race of warriors to defend against the reptilian
Zaur and their magic resistance. For each new problem, it now seemed, Uled had
created a new race and with each race, the path to doom had become more and
more difficult to avoid.

Uled had wanted to restrict the Aern’s ability to breed, creating
them all male, thinking he could use low-born Eldrennai women with little magic
and no connections as brood mares for his warriors, but bearing Aern, with
their bone-steel and unique nutritional properties, rendered an Eldrennai
female barren, often after the first birth.

Nine in ten. Rivvek saw the statistics in his head, marveling at how
much cruelty could be concealed when suffering and evil were disguised as
numbers.

To solve the breeding issue, Uled had created the plantlike Vael,
their bodies designed to be both appealing to the Aern and easily capable of
pro­ducing many Aern offspring, quite rapidly if the raw materials were
available in sufficient quantities.

Two gallons of blood per infant to be
awakened. . . . Words from Uled’s notes haunted Rivvek, but he’d needed to
know, to understand, so that he could get the numbers right. His predictive
model required deadly accuracy.

On the page, everything looked like it would
work, but chaos, the natural tendency for change, had not been accounted for in
any of Uled’s plans or designs. First came the appearance of female Aern, then
male Vael.

Worse were the changes and complications brought in by individuals in

power.
Enslaved by Uled’s magic, unable to refuse a command, or break an oath, the
Aern might have remained under complete Eldrennai control forever. Given the
pride and arrogance so common to Rivvek’s ancestors, in fact, the entire
bloodline of Villok, Rivvek was still astonished it had taken as long as it had
for an Eldrennai king to break his word to Kholster, First Born of Uled’s Aern,
thus releasing the Aern from the spells that bound them.

From there, even Rivvek’s predictions would
have been wrong had he been alive to make them. In prolonged battle against a
magic immune warrior race in possession of nigh unbeatable warsuits, even in
limited numbers, Rivvek would have projected a complete genocide for the
Eldrennai. His cal­culations would have failed to account for the Vael’s inborn
desire for peace and mediation as well as the Aern’s affection and respect for
them.

The six hundred years of peace they had enjoyed had been a statistical
anomaly. Rivvek wondered whether other Eldrennai comprehended how lucky they
had been that the uneasy truce had lasted a year, much less six hundred. Even
if Dolvek, Rivvek’s brother, had not so stupidly broken the truce by moving the
warsuits the Aern had left behind as part of the truce, it would have ended
eventually. At that time, the oath made by Kholster to slay every Eldrennai
would have come into effect, and the path upon which they now walked would
still be theirs. Only the date had been variable.

But, as his own scarred body told the world, there are varying levels
of ruination. One can be scourged near to death, be broken, and laid waste to
and still heal to emerge from the flames, if not whole, then . . . still
useful.

“Kings die,”
he whispered, his voice breaking, the words strangled. “Fathers die.” He pushed
on, forcing himself through a verbalization of the hateful truth. “Everyone
dies eventually. It’s making sure that death has as much meaning as . . . as .
. .”

Optimize your
life and you will be rewarded in the next. That was what the gnomes believed.
Rivvek was certain Torgrimm, as god of birth and death, had made it happen.
Would Kholster, in his new role as Harvester, do the same? For the gnomes?
Rivvek did not doubt he would. For King Grivek?

Eyes closed more against that idea than the
dark, Rivvek’s ears perked up. His melted ear tugged against the tender flesh
at his temple as he eaves­dropped on the Kingsguard. Their appointed rounds
kept them stationed far enough from the cluster of deiform statuary to avoid
disturbing the Conjunc­tion itself, but close enough that the brave Eldrennai
could charge to their deaths in King Grivek’s defense. Rivvek assumed their
voices were overheard just as easily by the Vael and the Aern at Oot as they were
by him.

“Now that
Kholster’s dead,” a husky-voiced Eldrennai muttered to someone, “our King will
make things right between the Grudgebearers and us. You wait and see, Dace.”

Was that
Thalan speaking? Rivvek decided it must be.

“You think so, Thal?” Dace breathed.

“She’s not
even half a hundred yet,” Thalan chortled. “You think this kholster Rae’en can
out-negotiate an Eldrennai king with over half a millen­nium on the throne?”

This then, Rivvek thought, sitting up, is the peril of my people: arrogance unrivaled by any other race and
self-deception enough to make Kilke himself blush.

“My prince?” Sargus stirred. Rivvek opened his eyes, making out the
aura of Sargus’s life force more easily than he could his features in the
night—another “gift” from his time beyond the Port Gates. When one stood too
close to a Port Gate or wore armor made of Ghaiattri hide, one could see, as if
through a thin veil, the creatures of the Ghaiattri’s realm. Rivvek’s sight
afforded him a dual view of reality, particularly at night, the never-dark of
that other place seeped into his perceptions. With it came a light that illu­minated
the spirits of sentient beings around him. Sargus shone as a whorl of colors,
dark, rich purples wending through golds and blues shot through with the
occasional bloody red or coal black.

When bending his mind to a problem, the black, red, and purple
spread through Sargus, filling him up, the borders assuming jagged lines. Now
he was mostly blues and golds. Colors Dolvek thought of as safer. He hadn’t
been able to completely codify the internal palettes of others, but the inner
black was not good.

Sargus had
fallen asleep reading. Blinking to focus on the real world as much as he could,
Rivvek barely made out the glint of the other elf’s goggles in the scant light
that crept in from outside. A full moon.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” Rivvek whispered.

“I shouldn’t have fallen asleep,” Sargus answered. “Shall I—?”

“No,” Rivvek interrupted. “Let me do it. I need the practice.”

Rivvek heard an intake of breath as if Sargus had been about to
object, but the Artificer held his tongue.

A prince still has pride, Rivvek chided himself, even a magic-crippled one. Rivvek rubbed
his eyes, clearing away scratchy motes of “sleep” from the corners. He took a
long deep breath, held it, let it out again.

Mustering a supreme effort of will, Rivvek
forced his inner power to its utmost. Veins stood out on his forehead. His
scars grew hot then aching— pain a constant chaser to the savor of his magic
now—and fire raged forth: a

gleaming white
flame no bigger than the wisp atop the wick of a lit candle hovered above the
tip of his index finger.

Warm illumination filled the tent, revealing the smiling face of
Sargus where he sat in the strange folding-chair contraption of brass and
leather that let him adjust the back to recline or sit up straight if needed.
Rivvek didn’t know how it could be as comfortable as Sargus claimed.

Thoughts focused on the bit of mystic flame, Rivvek crossed the
tent and lit a lantern sitting upon a small camp table. Wiping a bead of sweat
from his cheek, Rivvek scratched absently at his nightshirt, as the pain in his
scars faded with the magic. The heat would take longer to dissipate, a side
effect for which none had been able to provide adequate explanation.

“Find anything
we missed?” Rivvek nodded at the leather tome open on Sargus’s lap.

“No.” Sargus closed the volume, shifting it from his lap to a
nearby camp table. “We do still need to make sure we take care of the Stone
Lord, just in case—”

“One son and two daughters,” Rivvek interrupted. He waved to his
left in the vague direction of the other Aiannai tents, the temporary homes of
those who had followed him to Oot hoping their prince and their new status as
Oathkeepers would save them from the Aern. “Each to inherit in an order we’ve
already hammered out. They relayed their request via Caz’s warsuit Silencer. I
handled it on my last trip.”

“That’s all of
the elemental council dealt with except for Hasimak.” Sargus yawned despite
himself. “He is more powerful than you realize. Were he to oppose us, he could
still—”

“No.” Rivvek pulled his nightshirt over his
head revealing Kholster’s scars upon his back: a diamond shape at the base of
his spine with two par­allel lines marking each facet, the right-angled wedges
at each shoulder, and a thumb-width line along his spine. Far from the only
things that marked his back, the scars of the First of One Hundred merely
filled in the space not marked by the various elemental foci that dotted his
back in winglike arcs in failed attempts to restore the full might of his
magic.

Once . . . he cut the
thought off ruefully and reached for his traveling clothes. Once these clothes were clean and fresh. They
were rank from the multiple visits to and from Port Ammond, but he could get a
change of clothes when he got there. A bath, too. He’d almost given in to the
temptation to bring

a cleaning
wardrobe, but doing so had felt too extravagant. “We’ll go with your strategy.”

“It’s risky. Even with the elemental lords
and ladies siding with you, the people could still riot. Even if Hasimak is
with us, he will never turn on his own people. If the citizens revolt . . . he
has always been loyal to the crown. Longer than the crown has existed,
actually, and there are far more non-magic-using Eldrennai than there have ever
been. Aern have proved how much trouble opponents without magic can be. The
plan is—”

“Not as risky as you think it is.” Rivvek
heard footsteps outside his tent flap. Two steps took him close enough to throw
them open. He smiled when doing so revealed Brigadier Bhaeshal, his personal
Aeromancer.

“Just happened to be in the area, Bash?” Rivvek teased.

“Finally used to your new schedule.” She smiled. Dressed as Rivvek was
in a traveling tunic, trousers, and boots, Bhaeshal would have made Hasi-mak’s
nose wrinkle in dismay at her lack of formal robes, but they weren’t really all
that sensible for long flights. “Lord Artificer.” She nodded to Sargus, the
light from the candle reflected in the masklike band of steel that was her
elemental foci. She looked back at him with those pale white crystalline eyes,
and he returned her gaze warmly.

“Lady Aeromancer,” Sargus nodded back.

“Will you both
be coming?”

“Perhaps I ought to stay and . . .” Sargus trailed off.

“Look after my father?” Rivvek smiled. “I wish there were
something you could do to change his fate, but there isn’t. I need you with me
. . . to stop Hasimak from taking the throne.”

“Please don’t even jest about that.” Sargus got up.

Rivvek tried not to let it worry him. Yes, Hasimak was the oldest living
Eldrennai, but it was hard to imagine how he could be a threat to . . . well,
to the Aern if it came down to it. No, Rivvek was forced to ask kholster Rae’en
for assistance. It would be sad to see Hasimak go, but if that was the required
sac­rifice to save as many of Rivvek’s people, as many of the Eldrennai, as he
could. Rivvek intended to make that sacrifice and any others the gods demanded.

“Don’t forget the book.” He gestured, and Sargus picked the heavy
tome up off of the camp table.

“My prince . .
.” Sargus put a hand on Rivvek’s shoulder and seemed momentarily surprised by
the scars beneath his tunic, still hot to the touch even through the fabric.
“Maybe she won’t kill him.”

“Kings die. A good king dies for his people when it is required.”
Riv-vek’s voice cracked as he whispered the words. Believing them didn’t take

dismiss their
sting in the slightest. “You just promise me we’ll make his sacrifice mean
something.”

They flew before dawn, sunrise catching up
with them halfway to Port Ammond. The rising light lent the flowing myr grass a
fiery aspect. Rivvek, carried by Bhaeshal’s Aeromancy, caught himself staring
down at it and remembering another departure one hundred and thirteen years
before.

*

He’d been
scarless then, a haughty elemental lord with command of all four elements as
was his birthright. A Flamewing, like his mother, when he worked magic wings of
fire sprouted from his back. A glory to behold. It had been like armor, that
pride, and Kholster had cracked it.

The Aern himself, First of One Hundred, stood
in the last light of the third day of the Grand Conjunction, bone-steel
mail—uledinium, his people had called it, but Rivvek would never dare to refer
to it as that again—denim trousers belted at the waist with knotted bone-steel
chain. Even those clunky boots had seemed grand to the prince. A Vael princess
named Kari (not-yet-queen), her head petals cascading over Kholster’s shoulder
as she leaned against him, watched Rivvek with sad, wide eyes.

“You are right,” Rivvek said hoarsely. “What you say is true. My father
told me I should believe your version of any history you chose to share with me
and, hard as it is, I do. But, Kholster, what would you have me do? How can I
fix this? My people. My ancestors. There is no excuse for what they did to you.
No excuse for my father’s order at As You Please. No excuse for the
mistreatment of the Vael. Not for any of it. I came here ready to hate you.
Maybe I did hate you at first, but now . . .”

“There is
nothing you can do, Oathbreaker prince,” Kholster said, his voice gentle. “But
I, or my representative, will return again in one hundred years for the next
Conjunction if for no other reason than that you have heard and believed. You
have my oath on it.”

Rivvek opened his mouth to object.

“Unasked for,” Kholster laughed. “I know.”

“I will find a way,” Rivvek answered. “I will find a way, not to
make things right, but as right as they can be.”

Kholster
laughed again. “Good hunting then, but I fear your quarry is long dead, if it
ever existed.”

“Princess
Kari,” Rivvek shook his head. “Is there anything I can offer the Vael other
than my apology?”

“The Vael have no Litany to
recite against you, Prince Rivvek.” Kari

smiled
pityingly at him. “You are guilty of nothing in my—or our—eyes.

Keep it that way and we ask nothing more. If Kholster agrees, you are
even

welcome in The Parliament of Ages.”

Kholster nodded his assent.

“Such,” Rivvek answered, “is my intent.”

“No promise?” Kholster asked.

“I swear that it is my intent, but I cannot read what the future may
hold